The Gallant Centurion
by The Centurion
Summary: This story is about a Roman soldier who has to flee from battle due to a Greek onslaught. I wrote this, and it will become a novel at some point of time.
1. Default Chapter

The Gallant Centurion  
  
( Chapter I )  
  
  
  
A breeze passed over the steep slope in which the centurion stood upon. He looked beneath himself, and there stood three Carthaginian archers. The archers never took notice of him, until they heard a bristling of leaves. The centurion looked down at them, and unsheathed his three-foot long sword. The archers spun around and swiftly and raised their bows in an orderly fashion. The centurion nodded, for he was merciful, and sheathed his sword. The archers pleaded, "Who is it thine hath been merciful to we archers?" The centurion replied, "Bruce Di'Maggio, commander of the armies of the Southern tip of the Roman Peninsula, in the predicament of losing my entire army of one century to the Greeks, I have evaded from the battlefield to find reinforcements," The archer closest to Bruce spoke up," We know of seven scores of archers, legionnaires, and calvary deep into this forest, if you wish, we could lead the way," Bruce exclaimed," That would be wonderful, lead the way!" The archers began to prod into the forest, adjacent to one another. Bruce stood behind them all, and followed like a puppy. The archers spoke," Could you tell us the story of what happened during that battle?" Bruce replied, "That I will, but first, it is getting dark, let us rest." They all nodded in agreement, and plopped down onto the green grass slowly.  
  
"Fire anyone?" Bruce spoke quickly, as he withdrew a two pound flint stone from his chain mail armor. Unsheathing his sword, the archers heaved a fallen log infront of Bruce. Chomp! Bruce's sword came down in a downward motion seveal times, chopping seven two-foot long cylinders of wood. He placed them all in a heap in the center of the circle the men had made. Taking a small edged dagger from his vest, Bruce struck the flint in a diagonal motion, and sent off several sparks onto the wood, it igniting in an instant. He placed the dagger back into his vest, and sheathed his sword. " Now, I shall begin.. It started on an early morning around two months ago, when the Greeks invaded a small island off the coast of the peninsula. Stones flew, arrows hastened, swords sliced, fire and smoke arose into the orange sky, people died from shrapnel, and the Greeks took control of that island. That was the key to winning. There the Greeks rebuilt their forces, mounting over three centuries of calvary, infantry, and artillery. It took them one month to completely rebuild the forces. Their ballistas somehow could reach the range of two-hundred yards, and their catapults one-hundred-fifty. At that range, they could touch the tip of the peninsula where my army was stationed. And they did just that. Incinerating arrows soared through the erie sky, and came down upon my infantry. They attempted to shield themselves with any material they could find, but the flaming stones crashed upon them like feet stomping ants. By that time, I had fifty men left, which made me a phalanx. My army boarded transports and headed for the island, but were cut off by Greek catapult tiremes. All in all, there were twenty men left. They evaded the field, and ran off, and I fled on a different course. I watched from behind the shelter of a great oak tree at the twenty fleeing men falling victim to Greek calvary. The area which I left from was unknown to the Greeks, and I found myself finding you. The battle lasted two days, and I have been on the run for twenty-eight. The Greek army suffered no casualties, while we suffered a century of casualties. What the Greeks did not realize was that they left one man go untouched, I. Now I am going to have to aware Caesar."  
  
  
  
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Into the Forest  
  
( Chapter II )  
  
  
  
  
  
Â Â Â Â They awoke in the morning, with the sun's rays upon their faces. Bruce stood slowly, and glanced at the three archers, who slept under the canvas in the oak forest. Bruce grumbled slightly, and spoke rather loudly,"Get up, time's wasting!" The three archers rubbed their eyes and gumbled loudly and the word, " Fine.." was chorused between the three.They stood cautiously, and took up their bows.  
  
  
  
Â Â Â Â Â Â They then spoke," What's for breakfast?" Bruce answered boldly," Nothing." He then grinned. So they moaned, and walked to Bruce. " We'll forage berries along the way," Bruce spoke unto them. They nodded in agreement.  
  
  
  
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â "We'll have to take the forest route, next to the road, or else we could be cut off, and perhaps captured." The archers spoke," But the forest is full of snakes, vines, and briars; we'll never make it!" Â Bruce responded angrily," Yet the road is reigned by Greek Calvary; we'll be killed. Let's take out chances in the forest." They nodded slightly, knowing that they could not be convincing.  
  
  
  
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Led by Bruce, the archers walked in diamond formation obediently into the rough forest terrain. Bruce stumbled on a ragged egged stone, and fell to the forest floor onto a concealed net. The archers, not knowing it was a net, all stepped onto it to help Bruce. The net then went straight up, and the archers as well as Bruce were trapped inside it at 8 feet in the air. The archers swore, yet Bruce was removing that knife he had used last night. Five minutes later, Bruce had one 3 foot hole dug on the bottom of the net. All four men then dropped to the floor, met by a comfortable landing on soft oak tree moss. The archers chorused," Wh-what was that?!" Bruce spoke," A Greek animal trap. This trail is mined, lucky for us, the animal traps aren't checked until one hour later. In other words; we got lucky."  
  
  
  
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â The four men continued on the forest road, keeping a keen eye open for other traps. They moved closer to the road, leaves crunching beneath them. Suddenly, they heard voices up ahead. Bruce pointed to a towering oak tree adjacent to the road. Two archers went in that direction. They leveled their bows in the direction of the voices. The final archer went to an oak tree on the other side of the forest. Bruce remained in the center of the forest, his sword unsheathed. The voices got closer, and four long swordsmen appeared 15 yards from Bruce. They stopped dead in their footsteps, just at the sight of the six-foot-nine man. The four swordsmen spoke," Who art thou that standeth in the forest of Â the Greek Army?" At the word 'Greek' , the three archers stepped out of their places with their bows level at three of the four long-swordsmen. When three swordsmen placed their hand on the hilts of their swords, the archers released the arrows from their bows, striking all three of them on their left leg. One man remained untouched. The three swordsmen fell to the floor, moaning, but too weak to speak. The remaining swordsmen immediately removed his sword, and rushed at the Centurion with his sword hung high in the air. As quickly as the man rushed at him, Bruce lunged forward, his sword striking him in the stomach area; he fell to the floor, dead. When he hit the ground, he fumbled the sword which lay in his left hand. Bruce shook his head at the futile attempts. " When will they ever learn.." He sighed. Â   
  
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â After taking theft of the men's arsenal, the four men continued on their way through the forest. The archers had seen their first bit of war, yet more was to come, when they entered the mountains. 


	2. 

Take a Bow, Exit on the Left   
( chapter 3 )  
  
  
Here came the end of the hellish forest. Bruce glanced at his companions, and grinned. "You ready?" " Yes." Was chorused. So they walked onto the main road, headed for Lamia; but they would cut off into the Pindus Mountains, and then enter the Aegean Sea.   
After traveling around ten miles, the archers got restless. "Can we please stop?" one of the three said. " No. " Bruce replied. "If we stop now, we wont make it for atleast two days. But we can stop for some refreshments." He pointed to a raspberry bush. "Raspberries. Enjoy." All four dug into the raspberries as if they hadnt eaten in twenty days. After the entire bush had been emptied, they got up and onto the main road again. There stood one horse - with a rider; a calvary unit; Greek. "Who goeth there?" He spoke, but suddenly he was flung off his horse by the sound of a faint slice. The calvary man rolled off the horse, head falling off as he did so. The three archers winced, as Bruce appeared behind the horse. "Now we have a steed." He mounted, grasped the reins, and tapped the horses sides lightly. "Don't worry; we'll find more." He spoke to the three archers. The archrs just gazed at the head.. unbelieving the fact he was so crafty. "Well, lets move." They all carried on down the path.  
Now lets go back to the forest. When they fell into the animal trap, it had recently been checked. A calvary unit was on his rounds, when he noticed that the trap had been sliced in half. He was unarmed, thus he went to the roadblock; which you will find out more about later in this chapter, and got that fine calvaryman to come down and check the trap. Yes, you've guessed it, he was the man going to check the trap.   
Back to the Centurion. They went around five more miles down the path, when Bruce stopped and took out a metal tube containing one concave and one convex lens. He glanced through it, and spotted an array of archers and swordsmen near two oak logs blocking the road. "Road block up ahead.. I'd say around five-hundred yards. Get your bows ready." They did as told. "Now.. you two descend into the left side of the forest.. we'll go into the right. Be careful for thickets where crunching sounds may be made. We'll ambush them on each flank, my companion here will go on the right side of the forest with me, and he will attack on the right flank when he needs to. I will go up the back and take out the swordsmen. Your jobs are the archers. You two take the right flank." The three nodded, and they stepped into the forest. Both  
of the legions went into there assigned positions. When they made there rendezvous point, Bruce rushed around back behidn the road block. He called,"Come and Get me." and his companions shot off four of the five Greek Archers, and Bruce picked off two of the swordsmen. This left one archer, and one swordsman; a hoplite assigned to the area. Well, his companions took off the final archer, and the hoplite charged towards Bruce. He stuck up his sword, paried, then reposted, then the hoplite took a wide shot into his chain mail, inserting a small gap into his chest, two inches across, thirty millimeters deep. Bruce winced, and blood withdrew from his chest area, seeping through the hole in his chain mail armor. This.. made him flushed red with anger, and he got aggressive. Repost, repost, repost, no paries, the hoplite was too scared to attempt for another strike. Then Bruce lunge-thrusted the sword into his gut, 4 inches deep, cutting through the chained armor, and the hoplite fell to the floor, nearly dead. "My dear swordsmen, which dost thou wish, end of misery, or defection?" - "De...defection." Gasp. "All right then. Rouse my horse, my dear friends, and come to me." His archers withdrew from the forest with his steed, and he placed the wounded hoplite on the saddle, and Bruce led the horse into the town of Lamia, where they lay to rest. 


End file.
